Textile Choices & the Impact on Your Wellbeing - In Fashion & Your Home
This blog has been co-written with Eve who is on her final day of work experience. Eve has one more year of college before she goes of to university to do Fashion & Textiles. so whilst she got involved in many things this week from website updates and SEO, social media & marketing, right through to kitchen layouts & sourcing, it was essential that we created some time for Eve to learn more about textiles; including their versitility, life cycle, and the impact fabrics can have on our wellbeing. As we continue to explore sustainability at Design@Studio17, we cannot help but recognise that when you look after the planet, you can't help but improve your health & happiness.
This week, Eve's study also opened our eyes to some incredible learnings .... read on to find out ....
We explored fabrics that were suitable in both fashion and home textiles, and particularly on the look out for textiles that didn't contribute to textile waste (that remainon the planet long after being discarded), and positvely contributed to your health.
Silk
It is long believed that Marilyn Monroe was a huge fan of silk and claimed that she slept on the finest silk sheets to support youthful skin. These benefits have also been reportedly backed up by modern research and skin care experts that suggest silk supports anti ageing. Having experienced the benefits of silk hair wraps personally, we can believe it.
Silk is also a natural heat regulator helping your skin breathe, so for women experiencing perimenopause silk is not only great to wear against your skin, it is also great to sleep in. Whilst it is slightly more expensive than cotton bedding and if looked after well, silk can last for 20 years. Perhaps a great investment though to gain the benefits of good sleep and keep aging at bay... if those benefits have you intrigued but you want something with less shine you need to be investing in Mulberry Silk with a high momme, (the equivilent of a thread count for silk), a good grading, and a silk that is finished to create a matt lustre effect. You should also ensure that is has been certified by Oeko-Tex to confirm it is free from harmful chemicals and dyes.
Silk is beautiful and is incredibly verstile, it can be be used for many things really adds a sense of luxury, not just visually, but how it feels, there is a downside, it can stain easily.
Whilst silk is natural and breaks down between 1-5 years, and technically doesn't need fertilizers, so is more sustainable that synthetics, that doesn't mean good practices in the production of silk takes place. Silk production does result in high C02 emissions due fertilizers being used and the silk reeling uses a lot of energy during the process.
Wool
Wool is the most recycled apparel in the world. (source woolmark). It's usage goes further than homes & cosy clothing, it can be used as a fertilizer, giving back nutrients to soil, so wool can be used long beyond its lifetime as a throw or jumper.
Wool despite its warmth is actually great at helping regulate body temperatures, as a natural fibre it allows your skin to breathe, like silk, aiding great sleep - a much lighter throw made of polyester, or wool and polyester mix, (which is not sustainable at all), will encourage over heating. Wool pj's will also help you sleep longer and deeper, although for those with skin sensitivies or skin conditions this is not recommended as wool is likely to irritate their skin. Alpaca wool however, whilst more expensive is naturally hypo allegenic, super soft, and is much gentler on skin conditions, and for sleep buddies that have different body temperatures, an Aplaca duvet ensures that it works for both sleep buddies, and for those with asthma this is great as it won't attract dust mites.
Two surprises for us - firstly, wool can be used to make wedding dresses .....
We were incredibly surprised to learn about wool wedding dresses, to the eye they don't appear to be wool, and are surprisingly silky.
A standard single wedding dress can have use up to 20,000 litres of water and up to 30kg of C02, that is a lot obviously, but we you also consider that often a wedding dress is just worn once, it is incredibly bad for the planet, learning about Horrocksvale Bridal gowns has really given us some food for thought and we think its actually pretty cool. We hope this is something that catches on.
Our second surprise ... wool coffins.
Images left to right : www.alpacaemporium.co.uk, https://dagsmejan.com/en-gb,https://horrocksvale.com/
Cotton
Cotton is incredibly versatile, can readily be used in home textiles and fashion, its breathable, goes easy on the skin and helps regulate body temperatutes, so again is great for a good nights sleep and perimenopausal women - but to get these benefits you need 100% cotton, any cotton mix is likely to have polyester in it. And any promise of easy iron, definitely means you have polyester in it. (We too agree that ironing sheets is not good use of your time, (or wellbeing). but should there be any creases in cotton bedding, a quick water spritz and a hand to smooth over the bedding works well).
Cotton is incredibly versitile, particularly in fashion; its weight, from light t-shirts through to heavy denims, occassions, so from kicking around outfits through to formal attire, and from plain to prints, to name just a few. It is also pretty durable, so not only does that mean that cotton items will last much longer than other fabrics, it will also hold shape, but when a t-shirt gets damaged or worn out, it can easily be cut to make cleaning cloths. (again much more sustainable that microfibre cloths, and your great grandma would be proud).
Again whilst cotton is natural and it is biodegradable so it won't clog up the planet, the downside is that a lot of water is used in the production of cotton.
Velvet
Cotton velvet is believed to have originated in India, at Design@Studio17 we love the look and feel of this fabric, it is soft, durable and versatile. Velvet is perfect for creating a little luxury in the home, timeless, has a huge selection of colours, and you can mix it with many design styles, so it fits in to both more traditional or modern homes. Even adding a velvet throw on a bed glams up the space. But polyester can feature heavily in many velvets so always read the label.
In fashion, velvet is more challenging; it can very quickly fall in and out of fashion, or is often seen as seasonal, but when styled right, it shouldn't just be saved for Christmas. On the high street it will be more challenging to find sustainable velvet but it does exist, aside from cotton velvet, there is silk velvet, and velvets with sustainable viscose, such as EcoVero, they are hard to find but they exist.
Just like cotton, it has an impact, the range of colours may have resulted in dyes in waterways so seek out fabrics that have been made sustainably, there are now waterless dying processes and again look for fabrics the have OEKO-TEX certification.
The Wellbeing Benefits of Sustainable Living
Even natural fabrics are far from perfect, and whilst they won't take centuries to break down, they are impacting the planet, and we think that is the most important thing to our wellbeing. The fashion and textile industry disguards over 90 million tonnes annually, and this sadly is only predicted to get worse. Only 15% of textile waste gets recycled so most goes to landfill or are incenerated, which of course, will be putting pollutants into the air. So whilst of course we advocate for buying the most sustainable textiles, there is no perfect solution yet and the most sustainable thing you can do is wear something you already own, and if you need to purchase something, buy for longevity and skip the trends*, but when you need to buy, choosing the best textiles for your health really does pay dividends, for you, and the planet.
*unless sustainability starts trending...
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